Thursday, May 1, 2014

Legendary "Mad" man

I had only discovered EC later in my comics reading life. Like
discovering jazz or classical music as you get older, when people begin
looking for something more than the juvenile mainstream they've seemingly outgrown.

For
the last decades or so, I've been on the lookout for those cheap EC
reprints. Some were comics size, some almost treasury size, others were
bound together under new covers. I spent many a happy Saturday over the
years cleaning out more than a few bargain bins, until the local comic shop owner at
the time noticed, and put them up on a better display and marked up the price.

Now
that I'm a little older I tried collecting the various hard cover
editions. I got a few of the Gemstone editions, very very nice but expensive. But, I
liked best the series by Fantagraphics, each featuring a particular
artist/writer. I have the books featuring Al Williams, and Johnny Craig.
A little while back, I picked up the volume featuring Al Feldstein, ("Child
of Tomorrow and other stories by Al Feldstein"). I had set it aside until just recently, when I ran across an
illustration by Al Feldstein, in a trade collection of classic western
stories done by contemporary artists, (Western Classics: Graphic
Classics Volume 20). It was just a single page illustration but it
reminded me to pick up the EC collection. Happily this past week I had just finished
reading it, so Mr. Feldstein's work is still quite
fresh in my mind.

These editions are my favorites not only because they focus on one artist/writer, but because they are
reprinted in B&W. Some people don't get it or prefer to replicate
the original reading experience, but I think you can better appreciate
the art without the color. The line work, the compositions are clear and
crisp, without being muted by the color inks over the blacks or in some
editions you see the bleed through from the page art on the other side,
as the pages have been improperly scanned. And I've really enjoyed
reading this volume, studying every page, Al Feldstein's art and writing
were what comics should aspire to.

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